1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to locking of files in computer systems, and more specifically relates to locking of files in a distributed environment.
2. Background Art
Computer files often need to be accessed by different software applications. Various file locking schemes have been developed over the years to control access to computer files. One well-known locking scheme uses advisory locks, also known as FCNTL locks, to control access to computer files. Known FCNTL locks work well for different processes to access a file, but are unsuitable for different threads in the same process.
In a distributed computing environment such as a cloud computing environment, file locking needs to account for locking at the thread level, locking at the process level, and locking at the file system level. Known solutions do not provide all of these levels of locking in an integrated solution.